Um, just send us a hi-res color jpeg of your face/head. Remember - millions of men will be looking at you asking, "Is he single?"

Don't go too wild on the bio - I don't want to hear about eating brioche as a child, or this one time at band camp. I need like a 100 words max.

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FR: FranklinTO: TrickyDT: 30 Sept 2005, 06:04:27SUBJECT: My bio

How's this:

Franklin Habit (www.franklinhabit.com) is a photographer, designer and knitter who lives in Chicago, Illinois.

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FR: TrickyTO: FranklinDT: 30 Sept 2005, 06:14:32SUBJECT: Re: My bio

I'll take it - though if I had known you were going to be so brief, I would have allowed some brioche.

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FR: FranklinTO: TrickyDT: 30 Sept 2005, 6:16:00SUBJECT: Re: My bio

Franklin Habit (www.franklinhabit.com) is a photographer, designer and knitter who lives in Chicago, Illinois. He rarely, if ever, eats brioche.

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FR: TrickyTO: FranklinDT: 30 Sept 2005, 6:24:43SUBJECT: Re: My bio

better.

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FR: FranklinTO: TrickyDT: 30 Sept 2005, 6:37:25SUBJECT: Re: My bio

Franklin Habit (www.franklinhabit.com) is a photographer, designer and knitter who lives in Chicago, Illinois. He rarely, if ever, eats brioche, because as a very small child he lost both parents in a freak baking accident, and ever since has associated the smell of yeast and the sight of traditional French pastries with loss and tragedy. This prevented him from taking over the generations-old family business (Crust and Company, LLC) and instead forced him to pursue what appeared to all outsiders to be the luxurious, devil-may-care lifestyle of a rich, young, and fantastically good-looking orphan. A society obsessed with celebrity eagerly awaited news of his latest exploits via the tabloids, various fan sites, and of course his critically-acclaimed MTV reality show "Oh, That Frankin!"

Who could know that behind the glamour, the fame, the adulation of millions was a shy, lonely boy who fought crime wearing a fetching mask-and-leotard ensemble under the pseudonym Captain Shortguy? Yes, apprenticeships with the keenest masters of martial arts, weapons design, pyrotechnics, aeronautics and data mining had turned him into an unstoppable crime-fighting machine, a force for justice, defender of the downtrodden, symbol of hope to millions of poor and underprivileged.

In his spare time, Franklin also enjoys fishing, batik, and four-way bargello. But he absolutely never eats brioche.

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FR: TrickyTO: FranklinDT: 30 Sept 2005, 7:01:09SUBJECT: Re: My bio

Do you really want me to print this? I could make room...

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FR: FranklinTO: TrickyDT: 30 Sept 2005, 7:32:43SUBJECT: Re: My bio

Um, no, we'd better not. I made up some of it.

(I'm only a symbol of hope to hundreds of thousands of people, not millions. One would hate to be accused of exaggerating.)

Franklin, you might want to use the slightly (ahem) exaggerated bio to incur fame & fortune. It worked for Barbra Streisand in "I Can Get It For You Wholesale." You know she changed her bio pretty much everytime the playbill went to print. As I recall, she was raised in Rangoon. I'm just saying.........

Franklin, you are exceedingly charming and clever. Certainly there is no shortage of people who are willing to let you know that (as is evident by the delightful comments on your blog), but you and your intelligent humor remind me that there are good people out there and how lucky that is -- so I figured instead of thinking it everytime I read an entry, I ought to say so once in awhile. Looking forward to (hopefully) having the chance to connect in person at Rhinebeck.

Women get all kinds of stuff men don't - like they need less yarn to make a sweater, and every fracking pattern is for a woman. Men should have something all their own - besides menknit.net. Come on Larry Kramer, do your thing!

Ok, guys, let me tell you a little story about how that woman apparel is even more fiting than the man's. This is a story that not many know.

In the good old days when Greece was the cradle of all culture and civilization (if history is seen from a strictly western world perspective), women were mostly prohibited to leave their houses. They would spend their whole lives living in the ginekeion, the part of the house that lodged women, nd leaving it only to serve at the banquets that were enjoyed by the men and their lovers (mostly male, and I added this comment just to make you guys feel even more sorry for us, and I want you to feel sorry because the nicest men I ever met were gays and that made me totally off their interest, so have always had to content myself with the heterosexuals). Not having any ocasion to move and exercise, they became weak, prone to sickness and to miscarriage.

Pericles, the great Athens leader, decided that this weakness that characterized the women was making the population of Athens weaher and less numerous, more prone to be defeated (hey, are you still wake?) by enemies, or just overcome by immigrants. His solution was to promulgate a law that forced all the women to take a minimum level of exercise. Since the only time women were allowed to leave their apartments was to go to the temple, he decided that all the women had to daily walk up to the Acropolis and pray. Bum, well done! Good idea! Women were exercising more and therefore were becoming stronger, so to breed more and stronger babies for their husbands.

It was a pity that since the women that usually walked the streets were prostitutes, often enough these women were mistaken for prostitutes. And if they were not mistaken for prostitutes, well, they were game anyhow! And when pushes came to shoves, the women had to defend themselves (hey, you, down there in the second row: pay attention!).

The weapon they customarly used was the two long pins (in a sense similar to knitting pins or needles) thye used to keep their clothing in place, and wihich were usually pinned near the shoulders. Now, imagine this frightened woman, being pursued and cornered by a guy that's trying to rape her: and what does she do? She pulls out the pins that hold her dress up in front and, while the raptor stares her (likely sagging) breasts, she drives the pins into his eyes! WOW!

Unfortunately, Pericles decided that there were going to be too many blind men, and the fact that the blinds were actually trying to rape the women did not mean a thing for him. So he wrote yet another law that required women to stop wearing the pins and sew up their clothing over the shoulders. Now, what I am trying to say is that those shirts remind me strongly that when I am out and about and carrying my knitting in a purse or bag, in case someone tries to rape me, all I hve to do is to pull out the nedles from whatever I am knitting and stick them in his eyes. And this time no Pericles will ever prohibit female knitters to walk out in the open with their knitting kits! This is why I absolutely love those shirts!

Dear Franklin, Your autobiography leaves me weak from laughter. Whilst reading Typesetter's history lesson I kept thinking of the Harlot's airplane companion (see yesterday's blog) and... Did you say knitting bag? As in a Franklin Habit design on a Knitting Bag?? I cannot wait! I just cannot wait! And it'll be unisex so everybody will be happy - you're just too grand.

Having sported the proto-type of the "Don't Mess With" t-shirt at Stitches Midwest, I can say that the XX chromosome was clamouring for the shirt. But it's ours, dammit!

I think we boys should start a grass roots campaign to have dear, darling Franklin take that women's version off his shop. We could burn jockstraps and march on Washington (or would it have to be Chicago?) and generally cry foul until all is right in our male knitting universe.

And since "Captain Shortguy," whose first name happens to be Hottie, is the champion of the downtrodden, maybe he will come save poor Franklin's shop from the female insurgency and will defend the male right to male-related knit-related paraphenalia.

As for typesetter's history lesson, I wonder at the accuracy of such information. Is there a Works Cited page that I missed in reading that comment?

If Franklin wants to specialize in gear for male knitters, that would be his right. An underserved market for sure. (He might like the extra cash from women's stuff though to buy yarn with. Maybe a compromise would be stuff for men that doesn't have a women's version.)

And tricky, some of us bigger women are just as pissed at how little yarn those skinny girls can make things with. But you are falling into a common trap of assuming that men in general are bigger than women in general. The overlap on that is more than 80%. For example, a LOT of women are taller than Franklin. (no judgement, just a fact)

LOVED the biography. superhero, eh? (i hear mighty mouse theme song going)(no offense meant by the mouse comment, my real name is minnie, i understand). and the shirts are fabu. if you wanna make a women's version, more power to ya. i was gonna order a sweatshirt, but i swim in a large (ducks all the larger people). ah well. i'll wait for a t-shirt.

I am speechless, more than likely from giggling at the bio and the response. Both Tricky and Franklin are a hoot, throw in Jon's protest and this is a fun way to end the day.

I won't even enter into the battle of the sexes and sizes discussion. I am scratching my head at the thought of poking someone's eyes out with my needles. There has to be some other form of torture that won't get blood on my yarn or latest project. YIKES...

TrickyTricot: sorry, I was disturbed by that ugly thing called "work" while still writing my message. I am completing it now. If you failed to see it, it's enterely my fault. I am not a native english speaker, and probably my phrasing was lame in spome pints.

Also, for those who asked, the piece was inspired by a book by Jacopo Fo, son of nobel prize winner writer and actor Dario Fo, and to be precise La vera storia del mondo, where he (based on lots of good reading and even more indipendent thinking) reinterprets the world history in a way that is funny adn satirical and yet extremely well documented. A work of whatr in the 1970's used to be called "counter-information" applied to history.

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